Michelle Obama has adopted the overcoming of childhood obesity as her special project, which may turn out to be helpful, or not. We will see why in a minute. In any case, there is no doubt of the First Lady’s good intentions, nor does anyone question t …

Huffington Post blogger Jan Shepherd, who had lost 200 pounds and kept it off for nearly 10 years, talks about handling addictive behaviors: As addictive behaviors go, ones dealing with food and eating are among the most complicated and complex. I’m no …

One of the foundations of Dr. Pretlow’s philosophy is the principle that the kids themselves are the experts, and they are worth listening to. In fact, we’d better listen to them, or we will wind up spending a lot of resources on programs that are doom …

Through anecdotal evidence found in their own lives and the lives of loved ones, many Americans have acknowledged that junk food is addictive. The researchers, while studying the reactions of brain and body to certain kinds of foods, are finding tangib …

In Overweight: What Kids Say, Dr. Pretlow writes, What is really needed is a cultural shift in regard to highly pleasurable food, so that overeating is ‘not cool’ and so that junk food is ‘yuck.’ If the culture is moldable, these are the very people to …

When considering the obesity epidemic, more and more people are making the mind/body connection. David M. Dunkley, assistant professor in the Psychiatry department at McGill University, is also a clinician and researcher at the Jewish General Hospital …

When the body is considered as nothing more than a physical entity, all the answers are so easy, and everyone knows them. To lose weight, burn more energy and stoke the machine with higher-quality fuel, and less of it. Ta-dah! Or not. Except in the cas …

Today we are watching a video from a class given by Dr. Elissa Epel at the University of California San Francisco, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry. She and her colleagues have been studying the ways in which stress can lea …

Not long ago, Pediatrics magazine published the results of a study undertaken by four authors: Jean Huelsing, RN; Nadim Kanafani, MD; Jingnan Mao, MS; and Neil H. White, MD. They took a very close look at 76 children and adolescents who went to a weigh …

Here, from Huffington Post, is an illumination of one aspect of the proposed Healthy Choices Act. The article was written by Penny Lee, Executive Director of the Campaign to End Obesity. Her job is to cross-pollinate the thoughts of many powerful inter …

Ever since Barbara Schroeder and Carrie Wiatt first introduced The Diet for Teenagers Only, the book has gained quite a following among the young people it addresses. It has earned the reputation of being a safe and inspirational authority that supplie …

Well, this is news that many people don’t want to hear, but, like it or not, we do need to pay attention to scientists like Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson. Victoria Stern has recently reported on fruit flies, personality problems, nanoparticles, and bacte …

We learn from Megan Brooks, via Reuters Health, that overweight kids in grade school are prime targets for bullies. Actually, everybody pretty much knew that already, but not everyone has realized the pervasive extent of the problem. Brooks has been re …